Bernie Speaks at Vatican as Hillary Sells Herself to China

April 15, 2016, Rome, Italy. In another First, Bernie Sanders became the first Presidential candidate to be invited to speak at the Vatican. In his speech, where Sanders spoke highly of Pope Francis. He called the economic inequality "immoral and unsustainable." In looking at his speech, it is clear why the Pope has spoken highly of Sanders. Sanders sees human rights and protecting the people and the planet on which they live as a moral mandate. In addition to inviting Sanders to speak, Pope Francis met with Sanders privately, something else previously unheard of with respect to a Presidential candidate.

While his Democratic opponent frequently uses documented lies and blood money from war profiteers and the prison industrial complex to gain popularity, Sanders's words often echo the teachings of a historical figure known as Jesus of Nazareth. If you compare Jesus's Sermon on the Mount to Sanders's words in his April 14th debate with Hillary Clinton, you will note that Sanders appeared to echo the spirit of Jesus's teachings. Among other principles, Sanders seems to share Jesus's call for peace. "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God." (Matthew 5:9) In the April 14th debate, Sanders passionately spoke about how the killing of little children is immoral, while Clinton showed a complete lack of any compassion whatsoever for kids killed with weapons she helped supply (and may have profited from supplying) or with bombs she helped arrange to be dropped. To her credit, more than a million children have brutally died as a result of international policies she has promoted, voted for and/or initiated. This is part of the reason, so many progressive and liberal Democrats are willing to let her lose if she is nominated. Despite his extreme and racist rhetoric, Donald Trump has not caused the extensive loss of life for which Hillary Clinton's actions are in part responsible.

In contrast, while Sanders spoke of human rights at the Vatican, Hillary Clinton's campaign held a fundraiser with Gary Gensler, a former Goldman Sach's partner, in Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. Apparently, Americans weren't forthcoming enough with money for Clinton. She needed to sell herself to the Chinese Throughout this campaign it has been said that loyalty follows donations. And while Hillary's big money donations rise, millions of American children continue to starve, many staving to death. Bernie's campaign, which is financed by the people, is aimed at raising the standard of living of all Americans while Hillary's campaign aims to raise her standard of living and that of her donors.

Sanders was applauded at the Vatican. Extremely large crowds of Italian people welcomed him with admiration, gratitude and cheers.

Following are portions of the speech Sanders gave at the Vatican. His commitment to humanity shows why Sanders was the first U.S. Presidential candidate invited to speak at the Vatican.

"I am honored to be with you today and was pleased to receive your invitation to speak to this conference of The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences ..."And let us be clear. That situation is worse today. In the year 2016, the top one percent of the people on this planet own more wealth than the bottom 99 percent, while the wealthiest 60 people – 60 people – own more than the bottom half – 3 1/2 billion people. At a time when so few have so much, and so many have so little, we must reject the foundations of this contemporary economy as immoral and unsustainable. ..."Pope John Paul’s warnings about the excesses of untrammeled finance were deeply prescient. Twenty-five years after Centesimus Annus, speculation, illicit financial flows, environmental destruction, and the weakening of the rights of workers is far more severe than it was a quarter century ago. Financial excesses, indeed widespread financial criminality on Wall Street, played a direct role in causing the world’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

"We need a political analysis as well as a moral and anthropological analysis to understand what has happened since 1991.

"We can say that with unregulated globalization, a world market economy built on speculative finance burst through the legal, political, and moral constraints that had once served to protect the common good. In my country, home of the world’s largest financial markets, globalization was used as a pretext to deregulate the banks, ending decades of legal protections for working people and small businesses. Politicians joined hands with the leading bankers to allow the banks to become “too big to fail.” The result: eight years ago the American economy and much of the world was plunged into the worst economic decline since the 1930s. Working people lost their jobs, their homes and their savings, while the government bailed out the banks.

"Inexplicably, the United States political system doubled down on this reckless financial deregulation, when the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of deeply misguided decisions, unleashed an unprecedented flow of money into American politics. These decisions culminated in the infamous Citizen United case, which opened the financial spigots for huge campaign donations by billionaires and large corporations to turn the U.S. political system to their narrow and greedy advantage. It has established a system in which billionaires can buy elections...."Rather than an economy aimed at the common good, we have been left with an economy operated for the top 1 percent, who get richer and richer as the working class, the young and the poor fall further and further behind. And the billionaires and banks have reaped the returns of their campaign investments, in the form of special tax privileges, imbalanced trade agreements that favor investors over workers, and that even give multinational companies extra-judicial power over governments that are trying to regulate them...."Pope Francis has called on the world to say ' no to a financial system that rules rather than serves in Evangeli Gaudium.' And he called upon financial executives and political leaders to pursue financial reform that is informed by ethical considerations. He stated plainly and powerfully that the role of wealth and resources in a moral economy must be that of servant, not master.

"The widening gaps between the rich and poor, the desperation of the marginalized, the power of corporations over politics, is not a phenomenon of the United States alone. The excesses of the unregulated global economy have caused even more damage in the developing countries. They suffer not only from the boom-bust cycles on Wall Street, but from a world economy that puts profits over pollution, oil companies over climate safety, and arms trade over peace. And as an increasing share of new wealth and income goes to a small fraction of those at the top, fixing this gross inequality has become a central challenge.

"The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great economic issue of our time, the great political issue of our time, and the great moral issue of our time. It is an issue that we must confront in my nation and across the world.

"Pope Francis has given the most powerful name to the predicament of modern society: the Globalization of Indifference. 'Almost without being aware of it,' he noted, 'we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own.'

"We have seen on Wall Street that financial fraud became not only the norm but in many ways the new business model. Top bankers have shown no shame for their bad behavior and have made no apologies to the public. The billions and billions of dollars of fines they have paid for financial fraud are just another cost of doing business, another short cut to unjust profits.

"Some might feel that it is hopeless to fight the economic juggernaut, that once the market economy escaped the boundaries of morality it would be impossible to bring the economy back under the dictates of morality and the common good. I am told time and time again by the rich and powerful, and the mainstream media that represent them, that we should be “practical,” that we should accept the status quo; that a truly moral economy is beyond our reach.

"Yet Pope Francis himself is surely the world’s greatest demonstration against such a surrender to despair and cynicism. He has opened the eyes of the world once again to the claims of mercy, justice and the possibilities of a better world. He is inspiring the world to find a new global consensus for our common home.

"I see that hope and sense of possibility every day among America’s young people. Our youth are no longer satisfied with corrupt and broken politics and an economy of stark inequality and injustice. They are not satisfied with the destruction of our environment by a fossil fuel industry whose greed has put short term profits ahead of climate change and the future of our planet. They want to live in harmony with nature, not destroy it. They are calling out for a return to fairness; for an economy that defends the common good by ensuring that every person, rich or poor, has access to quality health care, nutrition and education.

"As Pope Francis made powerfully clear last year in Laudato Si’, we have the technology and know-how to solve our problems – from poverty to climate change to health care to protection of biodiversity. We also have the vast wealth to do so, especially if the rich pay their way in fair taxes rather than hiding their funds in the world’s tax and secrecy havens- as the Panama Papers have shown.

"The challenges facing our planet are not mainly technological or even financial, because as a world we are rich enough to increase our investments in skills, infrastructure, and technological know-how to meet our needs and to protect the planet. Our challenge is mostly a moral one, to redirect our efforts and vision to the common good. Centesimus Annus, which we celebrate and reflect on today, and Laudato Si’, are powerful, eloquent and hopeful messages of this possibility. It is up to us to learn from them, and to move boldly toward the common good in our time."